Progressive Linear B Ideograms: Level 4.2 – Agriculture/Livestock

Progressive Linear B Ideograms: Level 4.2 - Agriculture/Livestock:




The ideograms for livestock in the field of agriculture are pretty much self-explanatory. The important thing to remember is that the generic ideograms for various livestock such as horses, cows, pigs & deer vary somewhat in appearance from one to the next, while all masculine livestock, such as stallions, bulls, boars & rams are clearly identified with two parallel horizontal bars, and all feminine livestock, such as mares, cows, sows & ewes are identified with an inverted V or a variant thereof. This logical principle invariably holds true for all human and animal ideograms.

Once again, I remind readers of this blog that the Mycenaean and Minoan scribes frequently resorted to ideograms instead of spelling out words in Linear B to save precious space on their tablets, which were usually quite small.  In other words, ideograms are a kind of shorthand.

Finally, note that the generic ideogram for "pig" is also a homophone, pronounced either as SIYA or as AU.


Richard

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